1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dental shade guide, which is used for selecting a color tone having excellent aesthetic property when making a dental prosthesis.
2. Description of the Conventional Art
When a material having the excellent aesthetic property, such as a dental porcelain or the like, is used as the dental prosthesis, a dentist enters a color of a tooth of a patient in a written directive, and directs a dental technician to make the dental prosthesis having the same color as the tooth of a patient. In order to give more particular information to the technician, the tooth of a patient and color samples of teeth may be simultaneously photographed by a camera such as a digital camera or the like, and this photograph is sent to the technician. This color sample is called a dental shade guide. In the photograph, a plurality of the dental shade guides having different color tones and the tooth of a patient are simultaneously photographed, and the color tone of a patient is visually given to the technician actually making the prosthesis from this photograph. Thus, the technician can make the dental prosthesis referring to the color tones of the plurality of the dental shade guides in the photograph.
However, the conventional dental shade guide has a shape in which the color sample models a form of an artificial tooth of an anterior tooth and is attached to one end of a plate-shaped handle part so as to be rotatable around an axis (hereinafter, this color sample is referred to as the color sample). In many cases, a dental shade guides have a neck part where a width of the handle part at the one end side is thinly formed and the color sample is attached. Further, a mark such as A2, C3 or the like showing the color tone of the color sample is indicated at a position where this mark can be confirmed however the color sample may be rotated. That is, this mark is indicated at the handle part under the main part being away from the color sample in many cases (for example, refer to published Japanese translations of PCT international publication for patent applications Ser. No. 2003-513743, FIG. 3, U.S. Pat. No. 4,919,617, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,257,931).
In such the conventional dental shade guide, the mark showing the color tone of the color sample is indicated away from the color sample. Thus, for example, as shown in FIG. 1, when the plurality of the dental shade guides photographed simultaneously with a plurality of teeth T of a patient, it is necessary to photograph these teeth T and dental shade guides having marks M showing the color tones of color samples 2 within a frame of the photograph. Thus, since a photographing distance from the tooth of a patient is made far, there is a problem that the teeth and the dental shade guides cannot be photographed in a large size and particularly.
Further, as shown in FIG. 2, the color samples 2 modeling the form of the artificial tooth of the anterior tooth are rotated at an approximately right angle with respect to plate-shaped handle parts 1, and a plurality of the plate-shaped handle parts 1 are stacked for use in many cases. However, in the conventional dental shade guide, since the marks M showing the color tones of the color samples 2 are indicated only at the plate-shaped handle parts 1, there is a problem that only one mark M indicated at the forefront handle part 1 can be confirmed by the photograph.